


Leave Them Underground

by The_Otter_Knight



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Ancestor/Descendant Incest, Bleeding Effect, Community: asscreedkinkmeme, F/F, F/M, Female Callum, Gen, Ghosts, Hallucinations, Heartache, Hurt/Comfort, I mention Desmond whenever and wherever I can, Implied Relationships, Language Barrier, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Prompt Fill, Rated for swearing, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, drinking is bad for you kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2018-06-19
Packaged: 2019-05-25 16:02:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14980616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Otter_Knight/pseuds/The_Otter_Knight
Summary: Fills that I've written for the Assassin's Creed Kinkmeme. Might as well post them here.1. Bonus fill for Arno/f!Callum.Aguilar's presence is surprisingly sparse after her time-traveling stint. It does not mean that she is alone however.2. Fill for Leonardo/Bayek.Leonardo has always been curious about the Apple, about its secrets and its mechanisms. Or perhaps he's just curious about the stranger he spots every time he uses it.3. Misfire fill for coffee feelings.Callum supposes he should wonder about who these new hallucinations are, but mostly he's just tired of their coffee discussions.





	1. Past F!Callum/Aguilar, Callum&Arno (+ Shaun), minor time travel

**Author's Note:**

> Fic title is a reference to the ending song from Syndicate.
> 
> If desired, anyone who has prompted these can request to have their fic separated from the other prompt fills. (Usually so it could be gifted to them I suppose.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations are at the bottom.
> 
> Prompt:  
> Where Fem!Callum is in the past or present and meets Aguilar.
> 
> Bonus 1: Aguilar is possessive or protective of Fem!Callum because she reminds him of Maria. _(Unfilled.)_  
>  Bonus 2: Some sort of appearance made by Arno and his Guillotine Gun.  
> Bonus 3: Some Arno x Fem!Cal x Aguilar.

It's hard to recall her time with the Brotherhood; to remember the heat of the Spanish sun and the rough feel of their leather and the bitter taste of their blades across her skin - nothing truly life threatening but their sparring matches were a touch too real, a bit too mean and brutal. She still felt phantom bruises from when Aguilar had put too much pressure behind his strikes, when she had parried too late and she bit the dust - literally. They were more prominent of memories at the forefront of her mind than the recent battles she had partaken in - the brawl in London a few days ago, the beam that she had almost fallen from yesterday. _Those_ moments felt more like a dream than anything else.  
  
Even so, Cal tried to banish the thoughts from her mind - it would do little to dwell on them. She had left that life behind the moment she made that split second decision - that decision that could have only been made in that moment of time, when everything felt infinite and so short at the same time. She had made her choice the moment she stepped through the golden coils of power that pulsed from the Apple, the moment she let herself be touched by the Apple. In that moment she was no longer a student beneath Aguilar, a member of the Spanish Creed, or even - she tried to stop the thought because it was so wrong but it still floated at the back of her subconscious - she was no longer his potential lover and he her's. She had lost everything she had gained in Spain that moment she had stepped forward - _she hadn't even looked back._  
  
In the end, she had _left_ him - all of them. Cal hadn't so much as uttered a goodbye and had instead flung herself into the the curls of the Apple's magic and trusted that the Assassins in the 16th century would ensure that they followed through on their promise to completely and utterly destroy that Apple so it couldn't be used again. Moussa had helped her get to her feet and away - they were somewhere, a bit colder .. Antartica? Except there were _buildings_ \- and they watched the Apple combust onto itself; like molten metal it disintegrated until nothing was left. No residue, no stain, no melted mess, _nothing._ It was as if nothing was there in the first place - the gateway, the memories, the very lives of the Assassins before her. They are left to watch it until it's gone and even then some; the heavy heart in her chest and the tight feeling in her throat she amounted to the effects of time travel. Not because she _loved_ Aguilar and had chosen to leave him behind for a future that was more uncertain than the past, to a world where Templars knew her face easier. No, she hadn't loved him, but she had been _close._  
  
Callum decided, afterwards, when they book a flight out of Toronto - _not_ Antartica, fortunately - and fly back to their base under assumed names and guises to not tell anyone what had happened between Aguilar and her. Moussa kept close to her, a friendly quirk of the lips told her that he was proud of her but the sentiment was weak when she thought of it herself - she wasn't proud of what she had done. She had made so many mistakes in the past, and evidently all the _right_ ones because _this_ future hadn't collapsed, but it still wore heavy on her heart. William Miles accepted her back but there was a lost look in his eyes every time the Apple was mentioned, every time Moussa or one of the other assassins show him their scorched fingertips. Whatever it was, it was a sore subject and he was all too lenient to let them have a break. The others didn't take it, but Cal did.  
  
It was in her old initiate's room that she became aware that she was, effectively, haunted. Cal had dodged hours of necessary sleep until her eyelids became heavy and even then she struggled - she worried she'd see the deaths of innocents once more behind her eyelids, or worse, feel Alan Rikken's blood on her hands again. She doesn't quite start when she felt a hand press against her forehead. The presence had been at the back of her mind, a strange weight in the room, not quite a threat but not completely docile either, but definitely something that she would have classified as 'blue' - courtesy of another Assassin's strange comments once - so it mattered little to her. She had fallen asleep easily to the murmur of another language.  
  
The days after are smooth and every once in a while she will spot Moussa or even William, but those sightings are few and far in between and more often glimpses than anything else. She said nothing of the presence she may or not have felt, because she did not recall it when the light streams in through her too-small window and onto her face. She has long since reassured herself that it was a figment of her tired imagination - and tired she must be. She did not loiter around and sleep both the days and nights away; she trained and set her blade tighter into her gauntlet and hit punching bags until her knuckles bled and even then. Nothing can get rid of the ghost of Aguilar's fingertips along her wrists or hips, and sometimes she felt like he was still there, watching her. He never was.  
  
A week became a month and still she stayed - William dropped in every once in a while and so did the other Assassins - it _was_ a home base, after all. Moussa came by and watched her train once but didn't stay long - he didn't offer to do anything with her, but there was weariness to his expression all the same when he left. The loneliness didn't hurt as much as she thought it would. Perhaps it was the phantoms that followed her thoughts, whispers of something long gone skid across her skin. If she was asked to do so, she would in turn turn her attention to the libraries and skim across the books until she found whatever they needed from them. There was a man named Shaun who dropped by and let her help him with his research but something about him was sharp and biting - it was obvious he had lost someone important to him. The aversion between William and Shaun is apparent the one time that they are both there - they lost the same person, then.  
  
She said nothing to them because the one time she even _implied_ it, Shaun had snapped with a quick, "And what of you?” There had been so much hatred - misdirected she knew but it didn't mean that it didn't hurt any less - and grief in his gaze that she said nothing and instead passed him another book. Shaun was still stiff beside her but neither of them apologized and their lives moved on.  
  
The one day that she was assigned to field work instead of the research-back up team was perhaps one of the worst days for her. Cal trained with most Assassins and could name seven from the American branch - the most common to go to the base, that was - and none of them were with her. The problem with not being a field Assassin was this: less experience. It wasn't entirely that, but rather what her memories supplied her body didn't - she remembered what Aguilar has done, what a few of her other ancestors had done from in between the sessions - just a glimpse, a rush of adrenaline and never enough to know who or what or when or where or why - but her own body _didn't._ She was unprepared for guns - crossbows were _easier_ , she could tend to those wounds - and had almost fatally wounded herself in the extraction of the bullet that had torn through the small of her waist. If the world had small mercies it was that none of the Americans she knew was there to see her mess it up. Shaun wouldn't have let her live it down and she would have gathered an earful from William.  
  
All the same, she almost bled out and was rushed to a bureau to be tended to. The bureau leader had to close her wound and gradually, she got better. She definitely did notice, however, when someone unusual stood by the doorway, arms crossed across his chest and upper body hunched over enough for his face to be shrouded by his hood. Cal curled her fingers into her wound and ignored the dampness that ran along her fingers. _It's the medication or blood loss,_ she figured. She had never seen the man before and yet he stood there as if the post was familiar to him. Still, she raised a hand, a little stiff and worn from the fight and medical attention but her curiosity was high enough to give her enough energy for it. She made a couple sounds, not quite coherent sentences but hey, whatever, at least it managed to get his attention. The blue-clad man raised his head and she folded her ring finger over.  
  
"Nothing is true?" she coughed out.  
  
He hesitated long enough for her to doubt but finally he responded with something that sounded vaguely familiar and offered his own hand and a folded finger as well; a response to her statement, then. _Everything is permitted._ His demeanour changed and he seemed far friendlier than before so he approached her bedside and sat himself in the chair there. Knees apart and back fairly straight, he looked comfortable and in a sense, well respectable. Still, something felt a bit _odd_ about him. Perhaps it had been the way he sat or the shift of his movements that told him he had sheathed weapons on his person. No matter that, his robes and open movements conveyed a friendliness that she couldn't dismiss. That and he could have went for her throat if he truly wanted to.  
  
"Are you a bureau leader?" she asked him, voice hoarse and she coughed, her throat sore. His head tilted. A definite 'no'. "A mentor, then?"  
  
He responded in some other language - something that niggled at the back of her mind, something familiar and smooth. Something she would have known or had heard of recently, probably. Italian, French, Japanese - one of those, most likely. Definitely not Spanish - she would have understood the lilt of his words, the flawless seam and preamble. Instead, it seemed to move right over her head - something that she hadn't picked up, evidently. However, once it was obvious that there would be no communication between them, not with the language barrier, he settled back in his chair. The subtle inclination of his head told her all that she needed to know - she was dismissed. The slope of his shoulders said enough, though - he was disappointed. Perhaps she was too. Cal fell asleep with the side of her face pressed into her pillow, not quite focused on him but aware of his presence. The deep roll of drugs was too much to resist and she fell into a fogged sleep.  
  
When she woke up, she was alone. The other assassin was long gone, not so much of a whiff of his scent behind. It was as if he hadn’t existed. When the bureau leader stepped in to check on her wounds, she asked lightly how many assassins were there. None of them sounded remotely like the man and she knew well enough not to bring it up. Perhaps it was better this way. Besides, she just might see him later and it would be at that point that she asked him of his purpose there.

That ‘later’ turned out to be in a few days, when Aguilar’s ghost had stood a little too close, his smile a little too friendly and _real._ When his presence was warm and the weight of his hand had left a trail of heat in his wake, that with each exhale she heard him. The worst was that his gaze was full of pity and remorse. In his eyes, she could see her regret stare back at her. It had since been easy to find the small bar in he bureau, to knock back a shot of something strong and bitter, probably Scotch or Rum or something else entirely.  
  
The Assassin clad in blue stood off to the side, shoulders pressed against the wall and body at an angle. One of his ankles was crossed over the other and his arms were unsurprisingly crossed. Callum was slow to stand up, to approach him. Aguilar watched her go from where he sat and she tried to ignore the weight of his somber stare. Cal stood off to the side, stance weary and wavered more than once more out of uncertainty than fear. When it became clear that he would not acknowledge her she sighed and straightened her spine and loudly commented, “Hey, you.”  
  
A few stares tossed her way prompted her to place her palm against the wall and tip her glass towards them. The other Assassins present warily returned to their own conversations - it wasn’t as if she had directed her comment towards them, after all.  
  
_“Bonjour.*”_  
  
Son of a bitch.  
  
The dude was French. As if the fact that he spoke one of the fewest French words that she knew wasn’t enough, his accent was smooth and loose, fluent where a foreign speaker could never hope to achieve. _“Je m’appelle,_ uh, _Callum.*”_ By Ezio’s beard, it was more difficult to grasp at the language than she thought it would. The last time she had even studied French was that one year she was in High School.  
  
_“Mon nom est Arno.*“_ Then his words dipped into something else - a question that left her baffled and wide eyed. _“Comment vas-tu, Callum? Vous ne devriez pas boire ça, et encore moins beaucoup.*”_  
  
Cal struggled and pulled at the basic threads of knowledge somewhere at the back of her mind. It felt like had tugged at spider webs - very little words came back to her after that. “Uh, uh - _ju - ju suis*_ \- shit -“ Her eyebrows knitted and her mouth tugged down into a tight and thin expression. Arno’s face seemed to soften, his mouth curved slightly into a bemused smile and he leaned forward and he looked about ready to say somethi-  
  
“What the bloody hell are you doing?”  
  
Cal turned and stiffened. Shaun stood not far off, his eyes squinted from behind his glasses, his expression hard and taut. His mouth was drawn in a thin and firm line, eyebrows pulled close together. She had spent enough time with him in the library to know that it was concern, not anger, that morphed his face so.  
  
But Cal knew well enough what it looked like. “Nothing,” she said, more bite than necessary. Shaun’s expression tightened into something sour. He set down the glass he had with surprising speed and took a few steps forward. Cal’s own grip tightened on her glass. She wasn’t immature enough to toss it at him then make a break for it but she had considered it. Instead, she downed it and winced at the burn at the back of her throat.  
  
“Cal-“  
  
“Is it a crime to get to know a fellow Assassin?”  
  
Shaun stopped short. Something in his face grew colder and his gaze slid to her side - then continued to slide. It didn’t stop on Arno. Cal’s gut clenched and a freezing dash of certainty settled along the back of her ribs like cold fire. The Brit’s voice took on a calculating tone, cautious and wary - as if she might snap at him. There was an exasperated look to his eyes, something soft and sad and forlorn. _Your dead buddy said something similar to you, didn’t he?_ But Cal was not stupid enough to say that. “And just who are you talking to, huh?”  
  
Cal made a motion as if to throw back her shot but she stopped short and frowned. Her glass remained empty. Was she drunk enough for this conversation? Should she go order another glass to tide her over for this? It had happened once, told to her by Sofia back when things were simpler and never again. Slowly, she came to the conclusion that no, she didn’t want to have this one-sided discussion at all. Phantom words of her singing danced behind the front of her skull. She couldn’t act out like she did then but the thought itself was comforting.  
  
_I’m losing my goddamn mind._ Instead, what she said was, “I’m tired. I think I’m going to go to bed.” Shaun’s brow knitted further and tighter together, his mouth pursed into something akin to disdain. He looked disgruntled to no end but didn’t voice it. “Good night, Hastings.” Shaun, like she expected, did not stop her. His gaze trailed after her though and his objection was evident in the way he swallowed down his drink. He had likely gone to the bar to console himself, perhaps escape his own ghosts - but the way he had looked at her told her that he saw them in her. Evidently, neither of them could escape theirs.  
  
Arno, however, followed after her. Not bodily like someone else might have thought, but his presence was at the back of her mind and in the echoes of her footfalls. _“You are not alone, Cal,”_ is what her mother had once told her and it held true. _I have my ancestors with me - but it’s not a good thing. They shouldn’t follow after me in this life - they should rest in peace and leave me be._ Shaun saw the bleeding effect in her and she had seen it herself, had figured it the moment the bureau leader said no, but yet...  
  
Cal picked up the pace and shut her door behind her, the lock a sound of deafening proportions. _I don’t want to let go of the only people who cared._ She was not alone in her thoughts, though, because she turned and Arno was there, leaned back in his chair and expression clear. With his hood down, she could get a good look at him. A rounder face, firm and straight nose, thick eyebrows, hair pulled back, long and dark, lips pulled up just slightly at the corners, flat and thin. Not because he wanted to smile but because it seemed to be his resting face. She saw herself in the slope of his cheekbones and the arch of his eyes if she strained enough but it wasn’t what she wanted to see or know.  
  
Cal didn’t know much about Arno, but a quick look in the library or a chat with Shaun would detail who and what he was. She only saw him as the man with the sad eyes, the one who seemed to disregard her favouritism towards alcohol - had he done something similar? - and who had likely been the one to talk to her when she was out cold.  
  
No, she didn’t know much about Arno or who he was, but he also kept Aguilar away and that was enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1)* "Hello."  
> (2)* "My name is, uh, Callum."  
> (3)* "My name is Arno."  
> (4)* "How are you, Callum? You should not drink that, let alone that much."  
> (5)* "I am-"


	2. Leonardo/Bayek

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt:  
> I adore Bayek. I also couldn't help but think how well these two could mesh. Would love to read anything on this (ultra rare?) ship. Bonus points for Aya being her amazing self 'cause I love her too.

Leonardo didn't appreciate how juvenile it all felt.  
  
He loathed how the secret left an impression of guilt in his mouth, tar and cinders and smoke when he had not burned anything recently nor done anything, well, considerably indecent. How it curled and bubbled and broiled beneath his skin, something unique and sharp beneath his very creases. He really didn’t appreciate how voyeuristic it felt, how he aspired to be caught to some extent if only to share his bewildered joy, but every other factor in the equation weighed it all down. The consequences of Ezio finding out he had kept it a secret for so long, then the fact that a part of him yet wanted it to be _kept_ a secret were unwitting factors.  
  
It felt a bit like cheating and he’d like to think he wasn’t the sort. Leonardo was well aware that he has hardly had a companion since Ezio had strutted into his workshop. While his friend was dashing in his own rights, their friendships had yet to turn. If it would at all. Instead, he sacrificed sins of the flesh for those of the mind. It was more than an equal trade, and those ... Apples of Ezio’s were worlds inside themselves.  
  
Each time Leonardo grasped one, thoughts and notions and visions of building were structured within his sight. Motorized wagons and contraptions that could make humans fly and vessels that would allow them to plummets through the depths of the oceans. He could name them all and map their blueprints with shaky fingertips if he truly aspired, but it was all hazy without constant contact. His perception of time had long since become skewered since his first usage of the Apple.  
  
His consciousness could expand across the entirety of the globe and he could glimpse into dark corridors and tombs where the other Pieces were kept. Once, he was met with the awareness of being glimpsed _into_. The paranoia and frenzied irritability that ensued from that was enough for him to reconsider doing that again. It was an ordeal, though, to have felt infinity through his veins and phantom aches of migraines as they bloomed inside his skull with reachable knowledge and then have to settle back into his body made of flesh and blood.  
  
There were other consequences, too. The Apple spoke in concepts and ideas without the sharp vowels of any language spoken. They were easy to decipher when the meaning was presented so clearly and profoundly to him. There was even a slow drawl of humanity etched into a corner of this Apple, something that reminded him of sharp-angled cursive and sharp vowels and something so distinctly human. That area was easier to decipher, to become tangible as someone’s verbal journal. The still-frames -- not paintings but memories frozen -- etched in that corner were of Masyaf, of Assassins and blades and of loss. There had been a temple that felt colossal as the journalist described it. The the weight of what transpired had there that made it so. It marred his thoughts and a few times he awoke with a language not of his own on his tongue.  
  
The true reason why he had felt this way, plagued with guilt as he was, was because of the figure who lingered there at the corner of his sight. He had been an apparition before, brought forth by the Apple, at the edges of his eyes. His surprise lingered, especially so when his features seemed particularly human. He hadn't seemed alive, more shapes and whispers than man at first. With time, however, the stranger became more apparent and corporeal, nothing like those godly sights he would see on occasion when he stayed in the Apple.  
  
He was a hulking figure with scars that marred his arms more than genuine flesh did. He was taller, darker, and would have been a great deal imposing if he didn’t tower by each individual window that Leonardo had every time Leonardo spotted him. His gaze hooded, he stared out into the busy streets of the Italian city with disinterest - both in the people and in Leonardo himself. He hadn’t dared acknowledge Leonardo in the slightest and dissipated at the slightest motion of approach.  
  
He was about as bulky as one of the guards were with toned muscles and well worn features. His knuckles were bruised but his smile, when it would later grow apparent later, was amiable. There’s a distinct hum to his skin, of electric currents as they pulsed beneath him. Even at first glance, the knowledge of his otherworldliness had not escaped Leonardo. To even make a guess that he was a live person who had just wandered in had been laughable. Although, never once had the Apple told him he was a danger.  
  
When the Italian didn’t work on his inventions he attempted to figure out the mystery of the man. Of the finely woven cloth that draped across him and the way he stood. The pained way his shoulders arched when he pondered for too long, the sort of way he recognized from Ezio’s posture again and again when he thought Leonardo hadn’t looked. With time he seemed to gain more interest in the livelihood outside but only with the vague sort of curiosity that someone would when they had nowhere else to go.  
  
Gradually, the stranger turned to watch him and the way that Leonardo spread the cloth around his boards to make a canvas or the way his ink dotted along his pages. It was strange, to have someone hover nearby and to watch him work. It wasn’t with the air of someone knowledgeable or even with the artistic flair of someone who had a genuine taste for the arts. Or, in Ezio’s case, to wait for him to reach an acceptable point to break into his concentration. There seemed to be no reason as to his watching, just a bland sort of detachment.  
  
They never spoke, at first, and in the end he couldn’t decipher how long it had been since the man first stood in in his one-story workshop, but with unmarked time the other began to wander closer. There wasn’t an unfriendly nature to him, not that he could tell anyhow, and he only ever approached as close as the end of the table. Where Ezio fell asleep to his quiet tinkering, the apparition only watched silently.  
  
Eventually, they speak, or some skewed form of it. The words were soft-lilted, even though his tone was a little more like charcoal and dust. They were not the sharp, angular vowels and passive fervour of the speaker in the Apple - not that he would have made that assumption in the first place. It had been no language that Leonardo knew and none that Ezio had known - he had made an attempt to fumble through a couple words that only resulted in a baffled look. There was something distinctly predatory about him, militaristic and orderly, even with the lack of weapons on his person. Just as the author in the Apple was pegged easily as a Masyaf Assassin, he was figured to be something similar. Was it a rite of passage to go through such suffering? All three Assassins that he knew bore the lines of loss in their face, in their words or gestures.  
  
It was strange to start caring for him - this man in the hood. Unexpectedly, Leonardo had readily begun to angle his body as he worked for a more comfortable view for the stranger. It was no strain on his part, just a subconscious effort. One that seemed to have an amenable reaction. It also allowed for Leonardo to get a better consideration of the foreigner. The man could loiter by the window, lean against the pane and engage in other recreational activities. He seemed to lack the desire to eat, drink, or use any hygienic facilities. He held a certain edge of respect in his gaze when it lingered on Leonardo, of which his dark eyes held an intelligence that intrigued him more often than not.  
  
Leonardo was not embarrassed to admit that he had kept a journal of things he would notice; the texture of the fabric the non-native seemed to bear, or the intricate designs of his leatherwork. The blemished skin along his fingers and the flat expanse of his palm spoke of a hunting bird of some sort, or perhaps the very pigeons that Ezio worked with. The disposition that spoke of no ill intent but peaceful tranquility. Interesting, he was never there when Leonardo fished out the Apple to peer into it. There was a solemnity inside the artist that foretold it would not bode well if he were to be seen with it. How unfortunate the lives were of those who were sacrificed for the possession of a lone Apple. It was sorrowful how universal it was.  
  
The man would scratch at his shaggy jawline and refused to sit at the stool and instead sprawled across the floor, tucked neatly into the corner. He would muse aloud in that unusual language of his and Leonardo would respond, not with the knowledge of what was said but with the companiable ease that surprisingly came easy. Perhaps it had been the Apple that had deceived him so, made him so docile towards this strange presence in his room and a tolerance for his mannerisms. Not that there was anything wrong with what he did. He mostly loomed there.  
  
He was easy to fill notebooks of. His brooding face; the laugh lines that creased his mouth. The relaxed way he sat, hands lax. The way he stood at the window and the way he leaned over Leonardo's worktable. These bound books are shuffled and put away, proof of his insanity or the existence of transcendence through the Apple. Leonardo has never once considered to tell Ezio of this potential ancestral Assassin here, though. There was something selfish in him, something that wanted to keep the foreigner a secret. There was also the simple fact that it could have been his lunacy that had taken form and he'd rather not assure Ezio of that fact.  
  
His name was finally spoken by candle light - but perhaps it hadn’t been a name at all. A title, a shadow, a glimpse of the person he once was. If he had came from the Apple, was he truly a man anymore? He responded to Bayek though, the stilted way it fell from Leonardo’s lips the first couple times, haphazard and jumbled. It was familiar sounds and gestures that broached the thread of familiarity, that seemed to solidify the reality. Bayek spoke and gestured and with the days that passed understood the names of the paintbrushes and paints that Leonardo commomly used.  
  
Like, Leonardo in turn learned another word for his rug and bed and his window, for his house and friend. They still could not hold a conversation but it was _something._ This experience felt like a repainted canvas. The more he learned from and of Bayek the more the white paint spread. The more he yearned to restretch the cloth and imagine the lines that creased the work before he had smudged it so.  
  
Bayek eventually spoke of his home. Or what Leonardo had surmised to be so - the familiar ache to his words, the now echoed look on his face. He spoke of Aya and Khemu, names that he was only sure of because of the frequency. He only spoke of it when Leonardo was visibly distressed about how things progressed. When he spent nights plunged into the Apple. When he emerged each time afterwards less intact than he had been before. On some nights, Bayek was there in his room, a presence that couldn’t be shed, a shadow by the wall. Bayek’s hands would trace patterns of comfort onto his skin, sigils and hieroglyphs that started to make more sense with each bolt of knowledge pressed into his brain.  
  
Bayek has become a fixture in Leonardo’s life, a constant that has replaced even his paintings. He was what Leonardo used as the compass of his sanity now, especially when the walls were etched in blood of runes common to the anarchy of the inner Apple. Of glimpses into futures that did not yet exist, of currents of time that pulsate through and around him, disconnected.  
  
Leonardo threw himself into his work, scribbled and scratched until the echoes of what transpired through his sleep and beyond faded gently. Bayek stood at his shoulder now, observant but not invasive. He watched and tangled himself so messily into Leonardo’s life it was hard not to look for him in the crowd. Here, though, Bayek was _his_ in the purest sense of the word. His gestures, his kindness, his words as they bounced across the room. The way his calloused fingers dipped around Leonardo’s wrist, how the lines of his ink spread and the fragility of their friendship thinned.  
  
Bayek was warm and just, and it was not hard to admire his physique, his sharp mind and jagged glass laugh. His attentiveness and quiet nature, the one who talked to fill the void of loneliness but never the quiet in which their friendship stood. Bayek’s features would twist into something indecipherable from time to time, curious but patient. It was directed towards Leonardo’s work but more commonly him. It would be easy to trick himself into belief, or to consider the opposite. The Piece of Eden would surely tell him the fact if he just asked but Leonardo has always preferred hands on experience and experiments rather than a blunt truth. Whatever that look meant, he had hoped it was a mirror of the one Leonardo sent him.  
  
It was almost doleful how easy it was to consider that line of friendship. To judge the brushstrokes in which it was painted. However, the wider his canvas of reality was stretched and painted over the more he wondered if _this_ line, too, could be painted over. He was an artist, after all, and inventor second. He could create his own chances.  
  
However, the bluntness of truth would blunder in. The facts written in books usually had some basis, after all. Would Bayek only reciprocate because he was a figment brought forth by the Apple? A shadow deceitful and accursed as the serpent who dripped lies? Leonardo was admittedly used to physical companions but Bayek had been a friend first. He hadn’t wanted to take advantage of him, not in the way that was acceptable anyhow. Had he wrenched Bayek forth from his timeline? Tore him so easily and selfishly from Khemu and Aya? Was he merely a shadow of a person who once interacted with the Apple, an imprint seized? Would he thus defile the real Bayek’s memory? Was Bayek even real, or a conversion of all the conscious thought that entered the Apple into a single entity? Was he true, real and long past his death? Where did he go everytime he left?

Leonardo has always been defined by his curiosity and the more he thought he knew the more barren his mind felt. The Apple assured him of that. The more he could use the Apple, the clearer the implications behind Bayek’s words. Those questions of earlier still burned his mind and every time he awoke in a sweat and Bayek was there he felt ashamed. Not of the fact that he doubted the genuinity of Bayek but the hard consideration that he might have done anything to find out the truth. That his curiosity burned all the brighter when Bayek spoke, of his home and his people, words that he cannot pronounce without a fumble but could in time. He felt ashamed to admit that if perhaps Bayek could slip through time, perhaps he could as well.  
  
Leonardo wondered if Bayek had his own doubts, if that was why he was so reluctant to speak with him at first. Although that would then have raised the implication that they were both fabrications of that otherworldly power.. Had Bayek simply found his company agreeable only because Leonardo was all that was left for him? The only soul who had reached into the Apple, trapped in the void that was, only to be released every time someone chanced in? Bayek did not speak with Ezio just as Ezio did not acknowledge him. Other times Bayek would dissipate, gone so easily and silently that it almost frightened him. The truth was that the idea of losing Bayek was unfathomable had him frightened as well.  
  
Bayek would stand at his side diligently nonetheless. Their shoulders would brush and Leonardo would thank that his concentration was profound lest he slipped up. Not that his concentration was so easily deterred but perhaps because he would have gladly bestowed his focus devotedly to Bayek in all his entirety. There was a rumble of a laugh, nothing unkind nor foul but sincere and profound. Bayek’s bracer caught Leonardo’s shirt sleeve but then he let the other lace his fingers atop his and guide it to form a different crease on the page. The ink bled just a bit and what Bayek seemed to consider for the design would have allowed more freedom in movement.  
  
The quill raised then settled on the side. Leonardo knew that the lines would become presentable as his own the next day or even the next glance, as if Bayek’s influence would simply cease to exist. Bayek did not move away. He was tersely aware of this, of the way his hand lingered. It dropped just as his pulse declined into something of a normal rate. Those fingers reached up and grazed across his temple, at the blond hair that spilled there. The path he traced might have been something to represent good luck or fortune or even damnation. Then Bayek shifted. He leaned a little bit closer and the single word was an exhale. _”Leonardo.”_ It was not the first time his name has been spoken by Bayek, not like that, but it has an effect on him all the same. His head turned and he could see the full brown of Bayek’s eyes, the strong crook of his nose and the line that creased his upper lip. Suddenly but not for the first time, Leonardo considered to ask him to model for him. Perhaps with less clothes on. However, that thought for once was followed with the realization that perhaps Bayek would agree.  
  
Leonardo’s mouth curved up slightly with melancholy.  
  
Yes, perhaps he has lost his sanity along the way. That this juggling act between curiosity and answers would undoubtedly topple on him. Perhaps certain lines on a painting must never be marked over with white, especially if the rest of it was in colour. But Leonardo has always been one to try and try again, until he was either satisfied or ashamed or just tired of it all. The concept of humanity was distorted when in correlation with something as holy as the Apple, from whence Bayek came. Leonardo has every whim of a mortal human, though, one who dipped his toes into the goblet of truth. He was a man and he could be selfish. What he coveted was Bayek, though. When it finally came to it, he could paint Bayek’s form on his easel and be assured that sometimes it was alright to feel that way.  
  
Later, Ezio would saunter in after Bayek has long since passed. Whether that meant he has gone into his own timeline or trascended or became enveloped by the Apple once more, Leonardo was unaware. His time with Bayek might not yield answers but perhaps instead only questions. Curiosity could not be tamed and the painter keeps painting. Leonardo had always invented things and his secret of Bayek was one of them. There was no shame in his secrecy anymore, just the longing of a man who enjoyed the company and wisdom and voice of someone who offered it. As well as the fact that he skulked about with it, as if he truly did fear the knowledge of it passing to anyone. Perhaps that had been the problem all along.  
  
Ezio’s gaze had lingered on Leonardo’s flesh and the teasing remarks came, but with it came the truth. Bayek, in some sense of the word, was real. Whether he was a construct of his own, a creation for him by the Apple or something else entirely - a ghost, a phantom, an idea of eternity and beyond. Ezio knew that Leonardo chose to hide something from him but he also knew that he did not need to know everything. When the young Assassin went off on a tangent about another piece of Altaïr’s Codex that he has found, Leonardo found that he smiled. Perhaps he was not the only one with a secret of his own.  
  
Later though, after Ezio has gone he stood next to the chest with the Apple and considered everything. His existence, Bayek’s, the Creed, the ancestral magic that people have fought over and died for. Did it give without sacrifice? Was that its appeal? Or has it taken something from Leonardo already? What else would it demand if he asked for this: if Bayek was real and could visit Leonardo, why could he not visit him?  
  
However, answers would come with both time and patience. Both of which Leonardo has ample of. So he set up his easel and stretched the cloth and took out his white paint. However, his brush did not dip there. Sometimes, new beginnings were not the choice to erase everything and start over. Sometimes, things began anew when they overlapped the ending of something else until it was its own creation. Leonardo has always painted and invented things - pieces of art that he has shattered his soul to put into. It has always been something he has done. It will be what he continued to do after Bayek has gone, just as he did before. For this piece, he did not invent a story - he told one. One of truths and sincerity, of guilt and shame that passed, and of men who stood in his workshop and listened to the silence. With each stroke of his brush he confirmed that the world did not need answers, only those who asked questions. Perhaps some day he would ask the right ones and perhaps someday Bayek would stay.  
  
Today, he just existed.


	3. "I'm really fond of coffee, okay?" - Callum & Desmond & Clay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm a little bit salty that my beta couldn't get back to me before that other anon posted theirs. Oh well. This has sat in my docs for a month so it's actually posted here before it's posted there.
> 
> Misfire(?) Prompt:  
> I have a lot of feelings about coffee okay?

  
“I just have a lot of feelings about coffee, you know,” Desmond says and Callum can almost hear the sigh that drags through his body after those words. His hands are firm around the cup, eyes hooded and chin tucked downwards just enough.

Callum has long since gone past the pretense of refusing to indulge his hallucinations. “Really?” His tone is a bit dry, humorless. The corner of Desmond’s mouth twitches, enough for him to know he’s been heard.

“Not me, I think I prefer good old fashioned wine,” comes Clay’s disembodied voice from somewhere to the left. His grin is boyish, eyes wide and arms folding neatly across his chest.

“Didn't think you to be a wine-drinker,” Callum responds, a little bit lower this time because he thinks he sees Moussa’s silhouette down the hallway. It'd just be his luck for him to confirm his insanity in front of the only guy who seemed to like him.

“Sparkling wine is the best,” Clay admits further, “It's a helluva lot like soda. _Fizzy._ ” He splays his fingers then, childlike. Callum feels his surprised pleasure take a plummet at that. Although he can't say he was shocked at the correction anyways. Fizzy drinks certainly had seemed to be Clay’s type.

Callum thinks about giving his own input - he has always been a straight up water person himself, especially when it was the cheapest option as a homeless runaway, but scotch had a pleasant burn that took the edge off too. Neither apparitions had asked for his own opinion though, not that it would matter. They weren't real.

Desmond’s eyes flit over to him, a fold prominent in his brows. The way his mouth twisted was familiar. Geez, did he ever need new inspirations to pluck from. That was definitely the same tick there from the American Assassin Mentor that lingered in his face. What was his name? Yards? Kilometres? Some weirdass surname, that was for sure.

“Ezio liked milk in his coffee,” Clay supplies and he leans far back enough that his head dissolves into the wall. Callum is so used to this that he doesn't even blink at it, just feels an unpleasant shudder run down his spine.

“Ezio killed people for fun so I don't really think his opinion matters,” Desmond chides but his expression is smoothing out of that unusual twitch of concern.

Callum supposes that name is supposed to mean something to him, the way they say it. It's a ‘holier than thou’ sort of way, almost breathless. Wouldn't put it past Clay for Ezio to be an Assassin that he essentially had a schoolcrush over. But it definitely was a familiar name, the lilt pronounced and curiously picking at his consciousness. Lin probably mentioned him.

“I suppose you don't like milk in yours then?” Callum offers, directed towards Desmond.

Desmond’s hazel eyes are warm on him when he gives a subtle turn of his head. Clay falls through the wall and gives a holler. “I wasn't a coffee person before. But working late nights, a cup of coffee works well. A shot of vodka or rum can be a good kicker, but flavoured creamer or just sugar works too.”

“You better thank the pretty heavens that you weren't around to see his monstrosities,” Clay’s head says. Just his head. His body seems to be tangled somewhere up on the upper floor, his head through the ceiling now. Callum doesn't even try to understand anymore.

“They weren't that bad,” Desmond defends but it sounds empty, a little too toneless for it to be real banter. He’s staring into the cup again, contemplating. Callum almost feels sorry for him. Almost. Because it's kind of pathetic to feel sorry for something from your own mind, isn't it?

“He almost legit poisoned himself once. _That_ is why I don’t drink coffee often,” Clay’s hand goes through the roof and he begins to pull himself through. His voice rings clearly through even though without a visible abdomen he really shouldn't be able to breathe let alone talk. Clay has always been the weirder of the two. “You just don’t know when it’s going to kick it and expire and have it conspire to murder you! And that’s ignoring the alcohol!” He doesn't even wait for an answer, just continues on with, “If it wasn’t for that, in all honesty, I’d almost think my good ol’ buddy Des might’ve been trying to drink himself to death that morning.”

“Alcohol helps a lot as an Assassin,” Desmond says, not in defense because he's looking at Callum as he says it. It sounds as a statement of fact rather than personal preference. He takes a long sip from the cup and peers down with heavy melancholy.

“Helps you forget?”

“Yeah. And other things.” Desmond doesn't set the cup down but it's obvious he’s done with it with how he holds it, arms and hands stiff. Callum isn't even sure where he’s getting these things - these bowls and knives and even napkins that the guy fiddles with all the time - they dissolve completely the moment he sets them down. Clay’s laughter usually follows so he’d like to think the blond did something with them. “I think most assassins would agree. My dad, namely. I might've been good at mixing alcoholic drinks once. L- .. my .. teammates seemed to appreciate it, anyways.”

Clay makes a noise of agreement, a wanton noise of deep approval and giddiness that has Callum shooting him a bemused look - or rather at the ceiling. Only Clay’s hands are visible. “Assassin training at it's finest. Best ever use of quick reflexes! Ask Dessy boy to show you his moves next time! It's like pchaw, shishaw, whoosh! A literal godsend when he’s not making coffee monsters.” He flails his arms in some kind of exaggerated motion, one that Desmond seems to understand because he looks deeply embarrassed but Callum is only lost. It almost looks like he’s having a hand seizure. Was Clay trying to mimic some kind of arm-focused juggling act?

“Bartending,” Desmond explains and perhaps in another circumstance it would but Callum can only blink blankly, uncomprehending. Whatever Clay just demonstrated certainly did not look like a ‘bartending’ skill set.

Callum’s own explanation of it was likely something he had seen in a bar before, probably the last night he had been free before Abstergo. He still wasn't sorry about killing that pimp though. In fact, maybe Clay looked vaguely like that bartender that night?

Clay must have read his thoughts because his head swivels towards him with a wild manic grin. His comment is completely unrelated with a, “*Tea*, though - tea is just nasty.” He finally dislodges and drops down from the ceiling. He stretches and rests his arms behind is head as he leans against the table. Desmond makes a noncommittal noise or neither agreement nor disapproval but Callum almost feels inclined to agree with the former rather than the latter. Tea wasn't his forté either.

“Coffee is still good I guess,” Desmond affirms, back to their original topic. Clay ‘pshhhh’s and pulls a face. Steam doesn't rise but Callum knows it's hot, has seen Desmond wince a few times when he’s taken a sip with a slightly disgusted grimace and the kind of heavy breathing someone has when they burn their tongue.

“You have a lot of ‘feelings’ about it,” Callum agrees, confirming Desmond’s earlier statement. There’s a twitch to the younger man’s shoulders, enough for Callum to realize that perhaps his words were a little too mocking or cut a little too deeply to be ones of simply agreement.

“Yes,” Desmond laments, finally, “It's surprising the kinds of things you miss.” He brings the cup up to his face, a forlorn smile at the corner of his lips. He inhales softly and the action shouldn't have been as sad as it is. “I almost remember what it smells and tastes like sometimes.” The air is a little heavier then, as if Desmond can say more but he doesn't and the silence lingers. The admission feels thicker than he thinks it should.

Although Callum is very much uncertain on what to say to that. It's a little too overwhelming to consider the implications of it. _Why do it? Why drink it?_ Even when they weren't compared to each other, Clay is extraordinarily bizarre and Desmond is so mundane it hurts. Callum isn't sure why he would forbid his own illusion from being able to drink _coffee_ though.

The chatter down the hallway is increasing. The footfalls are above the silence, announcing their presence. Moussa has probably heard him talk, then. He closes his eyes and rubs the heel of his palm into his brow. Sometimes, he feels like he doesn't deserve Moussa’s kindness.

“You wanting to head into the animus today, kid?” comes the gruff voice of the Mentor Assassin and Callum blinks. Desmond and Clay are gone, no traces left in the air. No scent of coffee or even a hint of Clay’s sniggers. Not even the ominous creep down his arms. He’s not surprised.

He thinks about it for a split second, catches sight of the mug in the Mentor’s hands. It's crisp and clean and steam rises up easily. It's also the same cup that Desmond had.

He definitely needed new inspirations for his hallucinations.

Callum considers the alternatives. He shoots a glance towards the counter where he knows the can of instant coffee beans are. Considers what both Clay and Desmond said. He pushes off the counter and gives an affirming nod. “Yeah, I'm good.” Maybe on another day would he consider indulging his crazy side. Not today.


End file.
